Place North West’s Manchester Office Briefing saw an audience of 100 readers listen to a panel discussion on topics including Mayfield Station’s regeneration, supply shortfall, and refurbishment trends.

The panel, chaired by Place North West deputy editor Jessica Middleton-Pugh, included John Hughes, managing director of Ask Real Estate; Ken Bishop, development and agency consultant at JLL; Guy Illingworth, operations director at U+I Group; and Jon Matthews, director of 5plus Architects.

The briefing was sponsored by Curtins and held in Deloitte’s Spinningfields Office.

Despite an expectation that June’s Brexit vote would slow activity, according to the panel the market performed well in 2016 and was on target to hit the 10-year average of 1m sq ft let over the year.

The issue of Manchester’s future supply challenge was discussed in detail, with slow development not meeting high demand for office space.

Ken Bishop gave an overview of the city’s office market, saying that 93% of the office space built in 2016 had been let, and that around half of 2017’s planned stock is either let or on offer.

He said that due to there being no new planned office builds in 2018 that the market is going to be “a desert”.

Bishop said: “The average take-up of Grade A office space is about 350,000 sq ft per year. We’ve got 280,000 sq ft left for the next two years. That is going to create a problem.”